Libertarian Parochialism
“Three months remain for Eurozone rescue, says Lagarde.” “Greeks withdraw billions from nation’s banks.” “100 billion insufficient to prevent further crisis.” “Italy’s economy collapses.” Those are just a few of the headlines that have been published in recent days about the Eurozone crisis. For those who aren’t on anti-depressants yet, now might be a good time to find the nearest pharmacy and join the queue.
Today, the “dream of a new Europe” requires a sleep so deep that it borders on unconsciousness. Indeed, there is little room for dreamers at the European negotiating table and in public discussions about the Eurozone crisis. Four years after the beginning of the financial crisis, public opinion is instead marked by feelings of powerlessness, resignation, and rejection. Within a few shorts years, the Eurozone has come to stand as a proxy for misguided integration, expanding bureaucracy, unrestrained debt, and global crisis. A sign of the extent of our doubts is the apparent absence of a positive European narrative: the only language in which we can talk about what Europe should and could and ought to look like appears to be the language of crisis economics.
Historically, peace and freedom provided two cornerstones for the European project and filled discussions about our common future with life and substance. The signatories of the Maastricht Treaty could draw on these ideas as much as the opponents of NATO’s “double track” decision in 1979, or dissidents in Eastern Germany (especially after the Helsinki Accords elevated the language of security and cooperation to the level of government policy). Yet that discourse has faltered in recent years. Today, words like “freedom” feature predominantly in the speeches of European skeptics and nostalgic nationalists. More freedom equals less Brussels, fewer rescue funds, a smaller welfare state, and less immigration.